Q: I want to get into the Grateful Dead! How??
A: Well first of all wow! You might be the first on this site! Well, this article is pretty handy, but I'd narrow it down personally and give you a few specific avenues of exploration:

1. Definitely start with American Beauty and Workingman's Dead. If you're not into them, you're probably hopeless, but hey, might as well keep going. (SKIP TO 3 IF YOU ARE INTO PSYCHEDELIC JAMS THAT GO ON WAY TOO LONG FOR MOST PEOPLE)

2. Skull & Roses (aka Skull Fuck aka Grateful Dead), Europe 72, and Reckoning are essential and should be listened to next. Go To Nassau is one of the best '80 shows but not essential, and Without A Net is recommended if you listened to the other 3 recommended ones and said "I liked this, but it would be soooo much better if Jerry couldn't sing or play nearly as well and if the piano was electric and denser and if it had more MIDI." That sounds like a condemnation but it's actually a great album even with those considerations.

3. Here is the psychedelic stuff, but probably not like you imagine. This is probably much more country, folk, jazz, blues, and bluegrass influenced than your impression has been. Ok obviously you have to listen to Live/Dead which is one of the greatest albums ever made (if anyone has a copy on vinyl hmu I'll pay way too much money for it). Filmore West 1969 (not on youtube, here it is on spotify) is a great cut of highlights. If you are feeling really adventurous and want to dive into an alternate of a similar style (same venue, opposite coast, a few months later) try one of my absolute favorite albums of all time in any genre: Dick's Picks 4.* Dick's Picks 2, recommended by the article, is also great and recommended, especially if you're intimidated and could go for a shorter listen. The rest on this line are skippable honestly, but not bad. (GO BACK TO 2 IF YOU SKIPPED)

4. Yeah there's a lot of stuff here. This is a "furthur listening" type of section I suppose, and the article is dense as hell on it, so I'll provide some choice cuts, mostly taken from the reddit link below, but personally vouched for by yours truly. They are in roughly chronological order, so go by the descriptions rather than order for this section.

Two From The Vault is very similar to the other 69/70 shows mentioned in part 3. A great next step if you digged any of those.

Dick's Picks 8 is another of my favorite tapes of all time, any band. Features an incredible acoustic first set, the type of which they played a lot of which from 1969-1970 but of which few survive. Truly a treasure, and includes a lot of great banter from the band. "Why's everything so strange around here?" "I smell gunpowder!" "How're we supposed to play if yer screamin?" The second set is electric and is fairly typical of the 1970 shows, most similar to the '71 show of Dick's Picks 2 if you listened. Features one of the best "The Other One"s ever, by consensus.

This isn't in the article, but boy is it a doozy. Not my favorite show ever, but up there, and it is a lot of people's favorite. I believe its their last '72 show in the US before their famous Europe '72 tour. And it's all on video!

[MEDIA=youtube]ANF6qanEB7s[/MEDIA]

73-74 is my favorite Dead era, probably because I love jazz and their jazz-trained jazz-lovin drummer Billy Kreutzmann (Who STILL needs a half a tab of acid before every show [funny story, long story, ask me about it]) was in an illicit love affair with his hi-hat during this time period. Here is my favorite '73 show (warning: approaches 5 hours), and here is my favorite '74 show. That "Bertha!" My God!

75 they were on hiatus, but played 3 unofficial shows and one official show. The one official show is one of their absolute best. Released as One From The Vault, traded around on tape as "Make Believe Ballroom" after the venue for years, decades! before it was released. My dad had it on cassette! A jazzy show debuting all of the songs from their jazzy album Blues For Allah, one of their best studio albums, and really, one of the few that is worth listening to.

76? June 19th at the Cap. That's all there is to it. Listen to that bass!

77 is home to the Dead's near-undisputed greatest tour ever, Spring '77. There are multiple Dick's & Dave's Picks from this tour, Dick's 3 and 9 being the best. However, this also home to the near-undisputed (but certainly not undisputed) show of all time: 5/8/77. Just typing it feels divine. It doesn't exist in very HQ, but the music itself overcomes that completely. It hasn't been released as an archivist pick because "everybody's already heard it." And they have, because it's incredible. If you have just 25 minutes to listen to one Grateful Dead live cut, let it be this Scarlet->Fire.

[MEDIA=youtube]luAqu8VX5wo[/MEDIA]


Also for '77, the rest of the cuts in the referenced article are also absolutely worth listening to. To Terrapin: Hartford 77 is also great. My dad was at that one!

For '78 check out: Closing of Winterland and 2/3/78.

I don't really know much between here and 87, when they had a revival after Jerry's descent into addiction and subsequent coma from 83-85. The revival starts here, and their peaks here.


HERE is a great post that teaches how to listen to amazing Grateful Dead bootleg shows: Intro to listening to the Dead! • /r/gratefuldead


*Dick Latvala was the Grateful Dead's archivist. He managed the vast vault of master tapes(!) of all their shows, and all their side projects' shows. Of the >3000 shows they played, something like 2000 of them have to be archived there. That's a guess, but a low one. Dick's Picks, and later Dave's Picks when Dick died, are choice cuts picked out, remastered, and released by the archivist.

I just wrote this for fun, for some reason.